


In Dreams

by DelwynCole



Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelwynCole/pseuds/DelwynCole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was five when he met River Tam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams

Sam was five when he met River Tam. He was also asleep. He woke the next morning excited to tell Dean all about the little girl he'd met the night before.

Dean listened with good humor, but it was clear that he didn't believe. "They're just dreams Sammy." That didn't stop Sam from telling Dean how they would catch frogs and climb trees.

When Sam was ten, Dean told him that he was getting much to old for imaginary friends.

After Sam insisted that River was real, Dean asked Bobby to check for signs that there was a ghost hanging around Sam. Bobby had dutifully checked in every way he knew how, before reporting back to Dean that Sam was just a kid with an imaginary friend.

Dean wouldn't let Sam talk about River anymore.

When he was thirteen, Sam had his first kiss and it was from a girl he'd never even met in the waking world. River had made him stop calling it the real world years ago. After all, if this wasn't the real world then at least one of them wasn't real.

He wanted to tell Dean, especially when his big brother started teasing him about not having a girlfriend yet. But if ten was to old to talk about the girl in his dreams, then thirteen was much too old.

When they were seventeen, River told him that she was going away to a special school, but that she would try to come to him as she always had. For awhile they had met every night, but then, abruptly two weeks before Sam left for Stanford she stopped.

For the first year, Sam looked for her every night, searched through every dreamscape he found himself in, but she wasn't there.

Eventually he convinced himself that Dean had been right all those years, River was just a fantasy, a girl he'd made up because he had no other friends, just Dean and Dad. He met a girl in the real world, and started to live something like a normal life.

Three days after Jessica died, River came to Sam in his dreams. She was different, older of course, but it was more than that. She spoke in riddles and broken thoughts, and she came and went, sometimes with alarming frequency.

Sam tried to ask what had happened to her, but she wouldn't say. She just smiled. "I'm better now. My big brother, I told you about Simon. He's going to take care of me. You should let Dean take care of you."

Even broken and lost as River was, her presence in Sam's dreams anchored him. When they'd been children they'd been able to hold each other's nightmares at bay. They couldn't anymore.

Sam thought it was because neither of them was as strong as they once were. River thought it was because the nightmares were so much worse.

It didn't matter, the horror came and went, and they both stayed, held each other through the worst.

Eventually Dean would start to tease Sam about not finding himself a girl again. Sam would have to bite his tongue against speaking of River. He didn't know what she was, but she was real. If Dean believed him at all, he'd likely think she was a demon or a ghost.

Sam tries to hide from her, when he learns what he is, what all of the special children are. River won't allow it. She rolls her eyes and twirls him around in a dance.

The first night that he can't find her, Sam gets no rest. He tells himself that it's just this crazy town that the yellow-eyed demon has trapped them all in. He tells himself that he'll see her again when he gets out of this place.

"I can't find him, Simon?" River's cheeks are tear streaked, and fat drops of moisture still cling to her lashes.

Simon gathers her close in a tight hug. "Can't find who, Meimei?"

"Sam." When Simon just stares blankly at her, she elaborates. "The boy from my dreams."

She shakes her head violently. "They aren't. He's real, and I can't find him."

"Shh, it's okay, River." Simon rocks her gently, stroking her hair to comfort until she calms. River hopes that somewhere, Sam's brother is taking as much care of him.


End file.
